Check Out the Best Video Content Distribution Strategy We've Ever Seen

As an Inbound Writer for Lean Labs, Melissa writes about high-converting websites and customer-centric marketing. She's an avid traveler, with trips to Iceland, Ukraine, and Portugal under her belt. She currently resides in Wilmington, North Carolina with her dog, Morrie.

It happens to the best of us. You invest heavily in a video, then get little to no engagement. Why? Often, it's because you forgot the one thing necessary to find success with content: your distribution and promotion plan.

With a video content distribution strategy, you can follow a process that ensures better engagement on your video content. Otherwise, you will share your video once or twice, and potential customers will miss it. It may not rank, and it definitely won't deliver any ROI.

Starting Your Video Content Distribution Strategy

With strategic distribution, your team will follow the same process to upload, distribute, and embed every video you make. You can create a customer-centric video content distribution strategy using:

Buyer Journey -You can use the buyer journey from yourinbound marketing strategyto review the path your leads go through to become a customer.

Customer Journey Map -Acustomer journey mapoutlines the customer's current path, from the recognition of their problem to the resolution.

Together, these documents tell a story about the content your customer values. You can use this information to create a distribution plan that fits your audience.

Step #1: Selecting Video Sharing Platforms

Each video platform has a unique personality and will require a following a few best practices. Here are the best performing platforms and how to use them for video.

Vimeo

Vimeo has over 70 million creators such as entrepreneurs, filmmakers, and teachers. If you're creating human interest stories or videos that appeal to the creative industry, Vimeo is worth considering.

After uploading your video, you can optimize it for better performance, with a few steps.

Assigncredit and tag collaborators,such as a director or editor on Vimeo.

Uploada custom thumbnail.

Write a headline and descriptionthat conveys the purpose of the video.

Upload a custom thumbnail,with large text summarizing the content and a bright or white background.

Writea 200+ word video descriptionwith your keyword in the text and a headline that will compete with other videos ranking for your topic.

Selectsix to eight tags,includingone focus keyword, two or three alternate versions of that keyword, and a broad keyword.

Choose one oftheir end screen templatesto direct to another one of your videos or a playlist. (You will not be able to link externally from your call-to-action unless you're in theYouTube Partner Program.)

Then, you will useYouTube Analyticsto track the performance of each video and create custom reports to let you know how well your videos are doing.

Facebook

Currently, Facebook content gets10xs more sharesthan YouTube, so there is a lot of opportunities here. For the best performance, I would make a few adjustments to make to the video file before uploading.

Create a custom thumbnail and insert it at the beginning of your video file. YouTube lets you upload a custom thumbnail, butFacebook does not.

Add captionsto your video file. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of Facebook captions (which can be challenging to use.)

Edit the duration of your video. A length that tends to performs the best for Facebook isaround one or two minutes.

When you're ready to upload it to your page, you can go to "Videos,"All Videos" and click "Add Video." You will select the file, and a screen will pop up where you can:

Write a descriptionaround84 characters. The description text will also be what appears when you share the post on Facebook.

Draft a titlethat will grab their attention are they're going through their news feed.

Selectsix to eight tagswith one focus keyword, and a few versions of that keyword.

Adjust for length, as your videocannot exceed 30 seconds.You want to showcase the actual service or product your brand sells within that 30-time frame.

Your video also needs toshow the actual place of business,or the people that work at your company.

Otherwise, Google will remove the video as it does not pertain to the actual location or employees of the business.

Wistia

Wistiaisn't the same kind of video platform as the others since the video won't appear or get searched for on Wistia. Instead, you host the video there and embed it on a website page, a blog post, or a landing page, etc. Here's why Wistia needs to be a part of your content distribution:

Once you have the Wisita video, you can craft a blog post with your video. You should follow thebest practices of a blog post,with an enticing headline, optimized metadata, and excellent content and writing that follows a consistent narrative. You can even add a transcript of the video, usinga video transcription tool.

Step #2. Add To Your Marketing Efforts

Once you have a video uploaded to the right places and in a blog post, you want to embed it across your site and in existing marketing collateral. There are a few places to add video within a marketing or sales strategy, such as:

On website pages that supportyourcurrent customers,such as frequently asked questions, or any content regarding troubleshooting around that topic.

Withinprospecting effortsthrough LinkedIn, Twitter or email (if the video talks about the benefits of your product or service.)

Videos can also enhance old blog posts that discuss any relevant subject matter. You can use historical optimization to find the content that would benefit the most.

Step #3: Repurposing and Promoting Your Video

An excellent video content strategy will incorporate a few social media channels, playing to their strengths to get the most engagement from your videos. You should base your channel selection on where your customer wants to engage and have conversations relating to your industry.

If your video could help answer a question or concern, you may have an opportunity toshare it on Reddit or Quora.If you are not active on these channels, invest some time in building authority before sharing your stuff.

Lastly, if you can masterthe art of pitching content, you can establish content partnerships. You can guest post for another blog, or co-host a podcast, and mention and share your video. To find sites to pitch to, useBuzzsumoto search for sites that discuss any similar subject matter.

Step #4. Sharing Your Content Continuously

Many people share a video a few times on their social channels, then move on to different content. Your customer may be using various social channels every day, and miss your content if you only share it once.

You can share the content repeatedly by:

Similar to creatinga custom video email signaturefor every employee, you can use videos that talk about your brand, your company, or your team members, andadd it to your signaturefor a while.

You should share your content over and over throughongoing social scheduling.HubSpot has a handy guide tooptimizing your social publishing,to improve your social strategy even further.

Almost every social channel has an option topay and boost a post.Create a schedule to promote your content once every other week or so. You can spend $20-$30 and still get incredible engagement.

Overall, minimal sharing leads to low engagement and views. Even if you're only using a few social platforms, you want to share the content as much as possible.

Getting The Most From Video

With video, you want to get the best possible ROI as you can. It's a significant investment, and you will spend a ton of time, energy, and resources on creating the perfect video. That's why creating a video content distribution strategy is so beneficial. You can feel confident that your video is getting the best possible reach, and on the channels your customer is using.

You can also use this distribution strategy for EBooks, blog posts, podcasts, and more. When you create an overarching inbound marketing strategy, it's easy to repurpose and reuse your ideas and strategies into various forms of engaging content. If you want to learn how to increase the reach and the engagement of all your existing content, lower production costs, and master content distribution check outour repurposing toolkit.

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